


nights

by surge



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Campfires, Canon Compliant, Death, Deep Conversations, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Flirting, Gap Filler, Late Night Conversations, Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Subtle Pining, positive relationship? lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:07:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surge/pseuds/surge
Summary: on the way to kings landing, brienne and jaime spend their nights silent, except for this one.details the small bits of time they had together when they were together, as fate brought them, and the looks and thoughts they felt of one another in between. (gap filler fic + more)





	1. smoke and fire

There were some nights where everything was calm.

  
No threats of war. Violence. Pain.

  
There would just be the night sky, littered with stars and soft hums of winds at night. The rhythmic breath of the one sleeping in the barren grove with them.

  
It was peaceful, these few nights laying beside one another. Brienne on the left; Jaime across her, leash untightened only a bit, wound around the thick trunk of a tree he would be leaning on.

  
Each night, since Brienne’s order was given to bring the Kingslayer back to King’s Landing, was an uncomfortable one, each one having the Lannister go quiet from harassing the chaperone as the sun set.

  
He’d go deathly silent, the Kingslayer, a dark look in his eyes as the night blossomed with stars, covered by the branches and heights of trees above them. Each night, Brienne would prefer it this way so much more.

  
There were many nights like these. But this was the first, where’d Brienne would make a fire before sunset, the forest empty of signs or promises that they’d be noticed, Jaime chiding her on her fire starting techniques all the while.

  
They’d both worry inwardly, no, muse on the fact that if the night smoke drifted high enough for someone to see, they could be killed or captured.

It was a unpleasant, but obvious thought.

  
“You do know that fire will get us killed, don’t you?”

Brienne doesn’t answer, it’s only been a few nights and she’s already prone to every snarkish remark the Lannister has to offer.

“I assumed you would be one to know the probabilities of death when starting a fire in a territory full of Stark men.” Jaime hums, low rumble complimenting the crackle of the fire.

Brienne looks up, an unreadable look on her face, showing small hints of discomfort. “There won’t be men up here at this time of night. We’re on the mountainside-”

Jaime scoffs. “You don’t think I know that? We’ve been hiking up this forsaken mountain the whole day.” He hisses, kicking his leg against the scattered dirt and bark of the ground.

Brienne only swallows. “They’ll assume we’re village people. And it’s a cold night.”

Jaime chuckles, a crude laugh, and leans his head back on the rough trunk of the tree. “A warm night would be worth a torturous death.” He drawls, sardonically.

Brienne stops, and brushes her hands off of bark and dark coal. She thinks about his words, and agrees, whether he truly thought so or not. The heavy weight of her armor set on her shoulders starts to weigh in again, as she bends down to sit across the fire from Jaime, opening her mouth to answer. “Death isn’t guaranteed. And I will put it out soon.”

Jaime doesn’t answer, and Brienne casts her gaze downward to the fire and the husky blaze being brought to her bare face with the wind. Her eyes start to sting from the sparks, but she loves it. Every part of it.

She agrees deeply once again. A warm night would be worth much.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jaime leans forward, rags dragging against the bare ground as the fire slowly grows and shrinks in its dance. Brienne looks at the man, ragged and gaunt, face glowing in amber light.

“Tell me, when will you put the fire out, beast of Tarth?” Jaime mutters, inching closer to the fire, and her, than Brienne would expect him to, in his original deterrent mood. He huffs in the warmer night now, eyes glazed in watching the fire flicker.

Brienne can begin to spot the strands of white in his beard, and small scars and fading bruises at his collarbone, in the warm glow. His usual, snide sneer that accompanied his insults, is gone though, a more inquisitive look donned on his face instead.

“When I’m warm enough, I suppose.” Brienne says, no thought to an answer that could be more detailed. She pulls at the straps of the breastplate on her shoulders, aware of Jaime watching.

The heat from the fire pours in light waves across Brienne’s face, its light dancing in her eyes. It dances in Jaime’s, too.

The Lannister is almost keeling in the fire by the time a long silence has settled over their company. A small thirst for the warmth he shunned before, for the light and smoke that accompanied it, draws him closer to the fire, to the warrior staring at him. Jaime breathes in the heat. Tries to forget the things clouding his mind.

“Do you fear death?”

A pregnant silence gaps the small space between them.

It’s not a question Jaime would expect his captor to ask him.

He wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. He wants to scoff at the idea of it but he truly doesn’t know what to do. What to say.

He doesn’t know his own truth of it.

“Why do you ask, might I wonder?” He settles for instead, glaring back into the blue eyes searching him so intently for an answer. He looks at them, her eyes.

He tries to think of an answer after she answers his, but the thought of her eyes, blue as the Sapphire Isles of her motherland, lurk in the back of his mind.

“It’s a question- I’ve wondered since I first came to know of who you were. You were a knight, the son of a wealthy, powerful family- the Kingslayer-” the singular name, word, bites a harsh sting on Jaime and it shows.

Brienne slows her words at the sight of the Kingslayer grimacing, this time out of something other than annoyance or petty anger. She continues, wanting her answer. “You, the Kingslayer,” She mutters, saying it differently, softer. “Surely you’ve thought of death, and what it could do to you.”

Even opposing such a small act like a fire, thinking it could give them away, gave Brienne all the more reason to ask such a question.

“Why’d you say were.” Jaime answers, finally. He doesn’t phrase it like a question.

Brienne swallows. “I don’t know if I would still consider you a knight.” She mumbles, having no other explanation. Staring down at the ‘knight’ in ragged clothes, bruised knuckles and a leash around him as if he were a wild animal, or less.

Jaime laughs, finally. “In this state? All you would need to do is give me a sword, free me of this rope, and I would be ready to be knighted again three times over-” He looks from the fire to Brienne. “Yet still, I’ll always the Kingslayer, won’t I?”

Brienne starts off again, like he would expect her to. “You broke your oath. A promise. One many would die to serve and to keep, one that many people like me don’t have a chance to take-” She snaps, harsh words cutting through the sound of the fire crackling. Her eyes burn with anger, and for a moment Jaime thinks he hears violent sapphire waves.

“People like you? You mean people who lost their chance to keep their oaths, because they couldn’t keep their precious kings alive.”

Brienne stands up abruptly, anger burning through her and fist clenched close to her sword. She brings the fire to sway alongside her.

The silence and stillness follows the way her shadow casts itself over Jaime Lannister. She only looks down on him and sees a gaunt, tired man, looking almost incapable of driving a sword through a powerful king. She looks down on him and wonders why she asked him anything at all.

But he answers.

“I do respect death. In a sense. It takes- takes so much good and innocent in this life. But also takes the evil in it. It can save you or hurt you.”

Brienne sits down. Beside the Kingslayer. Watches the fire before them start to wane and stiffen from the close presence of the figure beside her.

“So you fear death.” She whispers.

The wind in the trees whisper along with her. She turns to look at the Kingslayer, the man before her. She looks at Jaime Lannister, and she realizes he has green eyes.  
She looks away. They were green. But they looked as eyes full of nostalgia, without remorse.

“Then I do.”

They sit beside the fire together, and the night goes on without Brienne putting it out. It dies, dies down slowly and only once does Jaime look up at the smoke rising and the stars behind it, and wonders whether to tell her of the truth of what made him the Kingslayer.

He doesn’t. He doesn’t believe he has a reason to, now.

They sit beside one another, and don’t sleep.

They've never felt such a type of trust like this in a sense, they think, but they don’t know that. Not yet.


	2. river running

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: this chapter and the one before generally takes place after the scene in season two, where brienne and jaime met (and killed) the stark men/the hanging tavern girls scene. 
> 
> *** the flashback (starting at the first italics), is right after the riverboat scene ends (when they escape robb's camp (i think?))

It was a tireless night before, but both Brienne and Jaime are awake as ever.

It's a few hours past the crack of dawn, when Brienne takes a last look at the campfire now blackened in death, and rises. "Up. We're going now." She barks, not harshly, but more of a spry hint in her tone. She straps back on the sword she held in her hand all night, the bottom of her palm now sore and cramped.

Jaime Lannister only mocks a groan and shuffles his bound hands together. "Won't you let me have a few more moments to ponder in silence? Last night was fun," He says winking, grinning. "Not to be crude."

Brienne snorts and reminds herself that this is the usual persona of the man she was stuck with. "Up, I said. We've got far roads to cover." She circles around the tree Jaime is tethered to, to untie the knot at the base of it. He's quite far off from the tree, Brienne notices, the rope taut by him closing the gap between him and the fire.

"Alright, alright." Jaime mumbles, struggling to his feet, stumbling when Brienne pulls the leash as it frees itself from the tree. "Trying to tame me again, beast?" 

Brienne looks at Jaime, half turned towards her, sly look expecting a pissed answer, but Brienne only motions him forward and kicks at the long gone fire as they venture forward. "You seem lively today." She huffs, shoving his back when unresponsive to the urging to continue their journey. "Seems like silence does you good. Might as well try it for the rest of the day."

Jaime cedes, and begins to walk forward. "Now I understand why you're silent all the time. But as I've said, it makes you a bore." 

Brienne chooses not to answer. She smirks behind his back, the smallest of little smiles she's smiled since in the Kingslayer's presence, and they continue on. She can handle being a bore.

The majority of the walk on remains mildly silent, with Jaime throwing in an irritating remark or comparing Brienne's face to a disfigured tree from time to time. 

Brienne breaks her silence when the Lannister snarks at her height, the sight of sunlight drifting through the trees distracting her from the reminder to keep her comebacks in her thoughts. "Most of the time I can't tell if you're just trying to bother me or be a hard flirt." She mutters, gaze drifting from tree to tree.

Jaime Lannister barks into a howl, startling Brienne from her daze. "Me, trying to flirt, with you? Oh, that only sounds like a dream _you_ could wish up." He turns away from her scoffing and back to the bark-strewn path in front of him, chuckling and biting his bottom lip. "Well, at least now I can say I've met a man who has fancied me." 

Brienne resists a scowl, and Jaime waves away the thought of making a jab at Renly. There was- and wasn't lines to be crossed again. At least now.

Jaime starts off into another topic this time, rambling away with an insult stuck there and there, half the time for Brienne herself, the other half for the stench of the stream and its dead fish running alongside the forest they travel in.

Brienne only loses herself in her thoughts and listens sound of the trickling stream hidden under the rustling of leaves in wind. Glances at the sunlight dancing with the soft stream in the distance.

She remembers the river they encountered a while ago. When she wasn't used to Jaime's voice fading under her thoughts. When she first truly met him, just the two of them.

The oar pulled water heavy on her arms then, the armor plated on her shoulders digging in. 

_One day_ , she said. Maybe one day they'd fight.

Brienne mused on the thought of the Kingslayer in front of her, relaxed even with his bindings, laid down in the rowboat and wrapped in his cloak like a babe in a crib. The warrior watched the man watching the river run by, it was a calm morning they started off their journey to.

"Hm. Maybe one day we could fight? I'd like to imagine how I'd beat you." Jaime murmured, eye squinting at the sun to his left.

Brienne raised her brow and continued her row.

"I bet- it'd be at King's Landing- better than a forest I think. I'd escape you first though, on the way there, of course, and you'd still pursue me and manage to get there somehow, because you're desperate for me?" Jaime nodded, dipping his head at Brienne as if he expected her to agree. "Then you'd challenge me, red with fury, and I'd agree, halfheartedly, I've other things to do, but since we planned this beforehand-"

"I'd only pursue you for Lady Catelyn's cause. And what other possible things would you have to do other that piss around and stab kings in their backs?"

Jaime sneered and waved his hands, leash dangling along with them, but a distant look clouded his eyes. "I've got people I love. You would understand?"

Brienne looked away, past the Kingslayer and at the river stretched out beyond him. She doesn't answer. Of course she does, doesn't she?

But no one appeared in her mind, no image of a lover, or family, or at least a good father, alive, to bring a reason to live in her heart.

"Of course," She mumbled.

Jaime scoffed. "Anyway, I'm still deciding if I would grant you mercy to live or not, because maybe I'll decide when I'm about to finish you off. Let's see how much of a worthy opponent you are." He smirks.

Brienne smiled inwardly. A part of her, confidently, knows she'd be able to take the Kingslayer down without a second thought.

"Say," Jaime mentioned after a while, "Would you save me if I drowned?" 

Brienne stopped rowing. The rowboat drifts a little further as she narrowed her eyes and spied the end of the leash she tied to the hook at the nose of the boat, still tightly secure.

"No."

Jaime suddenly twisted on his side and careened into the river around them. Brienne startled, almost drops the oar into the river, the rowboat shaking on its unsteady surface.

Jaime, disappeared into the dark river with the bubbling of white erupting from where he fled into the deep, was unseeable, Brienne frantically trying to decide on a quick decision: let him drown or somehow get him back in the boat without tipping it over and drowning herself.

The warrior breathed once. Twice. Closed her eyes. 

She reached to undo the armor at her chest and shoulders, eyes squeezed shut. She hasn't swam in any waters for years, for that matter, since leaving the Isles at home. 

A loud splash rings in her ears and she opened her eyes to Jaime, aggressively churning his legs and bound hands to somewhat 'tread' and not drown, head above surface.

"What- would you really not save me?"

Brienne laughed, the first one she'd genuinely felt to be real in a while. She stopped at the sight of Jaime, hair wet and curtained over what she thought could be a smile for a moment.

Jaime snorted, and struggled in his bindings, still seemingly well off in keeping his head above water even with them. "You're a lucky one, that I can actually swim better than most people in all the Seven Kingdoms. I thought you wouldn't let me die for the sake of honoring that Stark woman."

Brienne stared at the Kingslayer. "Don't question my honor, Kingslayer. And I would probably swim better than you, either way," She pointed at the nose of the boat and leaned over to grab the leash kissing the water with the rowboat's rocking. "Grab on to the end. We're stopping for you to dry off."

Jaime narrowed his eyes, and shrugged into a nod, chin lapping at water. He grabbed the end of the boat and swam with the boat, veering off to the right of the wide river. "Glad I didn't drown?"

Brienne pursed her lips into a tight smile and pushed the oar through the water.

"There's that yes."

Brienne, with a quick flick of her wrist, splashed water on Jaime with her oar.

"Wench." He hissed, spitting water.

Brienne smiled then, and almost smiles out of the moment of thought, back to Jaime bumbling in front of her in the forest, still raving on about how Brienne reminded him of some pig he saw in the market once. 

Jaime finally turns around, stopping to stare at his captor in her long silence. Notices her smiling, looking off above into the distance, the sun setting overhead. 

He smiles back, but she doesn't notice.


	3. fragments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pieces of memories, fragments of what lead to this moment, one night different from their many others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for updating late, but i've got a long chapter in store. hope you like it!

The words bite at the back of Brienne's mind.

_We don't get to choose who we love._

The road plastered off in the close distance burns a hole in Brienne's gaze, the unmistakable feeling of dread rising in her stomach from the sight of the small old man with his horse. The sound of Jaime answering his small talk, threaded with suspicion, is close to static in her ears.

"No offense, milady, but I wouldn't tangle wit' ya." 

The sudden laugh from the distance, hearty but empty from the old man, and one almost convincing and handsome from Jaime, snaps Brienne out of her thoughts. She pushes a loud chuckle out from her throat. Jaime still stands close to her, breath almost felt at the back of her neck, but she stands still, still as she can let herself be.

A few more words are exchanged, another smile plastered on her face, one on Jaime's too. Her eyes stayed glued to the man, out of politeness, she hopes he thinks, but Jaime's gaze darting back and forth between his company, lingering on Brienne's smile for longer than she'd expect, makes her stiffen all the more.

"He knows who I am." 

Brienne thinks, knowing she doesn't believe her answer. "He doesn't."

Jaime argues they should do what he always would do, but Brienne objects, even with a small part of her nudging her to please Jaime and his ideas.

She knows better, of course. Or so she convinces herself.

_We don't get to choose who we love._

But we can choose who we hurt.

-

Steel clashes with steel.

Jaime's heart pounds within, an almost giddy feeling inside taking over the words he says and tightening his grip on Brienne's stolen sword. 

She only says nothing, causing a disappointment in him, with every mocking remark he throws at her when he can. Every grunt, every grimace from her is expected, Jaime realizes, everytime they draw back from another clash of swords. 

He grimaces this time, though not ready to strike. He realizes he feels like he knows his captor all too well already.

His limbs already ache, with every monstrous push against his sword from Brienne. 

Jaime huffs, his chest heavy. "If you don't kill me- I'm going to kill you."

He lunges, aiming to hurt, raising and throwing his sword down from the air to maim. 

No words escape his opponent, pushing him to bring the sword down hard and swifter. He wanted to hear Brienne speak, he wanted her to say something, something unexpected. Only she could ever do that, he knows of her.

But only a fierce look of determination, of fury rests on her expressive face.

Jaime struggles more than he would like to admit in the next clash. Gathers that this isn't the worst face to be the last to look at.

Brienne is amazing in the art of the sword. He's not hestitant to admit at all, he yells it at her, but anger and exhaustion starts to rise in him, releasing itself as tired grunts with every sword stroke.

His opponent only pushes on, unwavering glare in their eye contact, and defeat starts to swell inside him, until the thud of her sword against his sends him down to his knees. 

Jaime pants, heart and arms and everything burning with soreness. He's waiting for her to end him. But a part of him expects her not to. 

He closes his eyes. If he respected her at all, and he knew he should, he would know she wouldn't hesitate to rid herself of a man like him even with her honour to her Lady Catelyn.

A man like him- he starts to cloud with thoughts empty of emotion- would deserve to die.

He thinks to say _"It wasn't a fair fight with my shackles, you brute,"_ but the dark look crossing Brienne's face makes him turn his head back. 

The whinny of a horse and solid footsteps wash away the pain and adrenaline. 

Jaime only looks up at a face of regret. He looks back, and stands up ready to fight with his captor.

-

The warmth of Jaime against her back only makes Brienne burns with resentment all the more.

She's never liked horses, and the hatred deepens as the horse carrying them in a trail of singing soldiers bobs violently. 

Arguing with Jaime, finally spitting out all her feelings and the poisonous truths she'd cooped up in her mind during their fight, makes the situation better.

But once the fellow prisoner strung to her back mentions 'rape' Brienne only blanks and swallows tightly. 

Jaime Lannister is trying to help her, she realizes. She hates it.

"If you fight them, they will kill you, do you understand?" He hisses, words pushing themselves to her ears like they were trying desperately to reach her mind. 

She tries to fight back against Jaime's words. She believes she'd fight back against whatever man who would try to defile her.

But the thought of the night coming before her laces her heart with a deeo feeling of fear.

-

Jaime realizes, truly and deeply, that Brienne makes him a better person.

He doesn't know how or why.

He bites his tongue to the sounds of her screams in the dark of the night, and conjures up a beautiful lie, one he is most proud of.

But then he thinks of Brienne's face, riddled with regret in the light of the sun on the bridge. He wonders if he's really to blame for all the screams, for the fact that they were stranded in this camp as prisoners.

He wonders if fate was to punish him for his deed.

-

When Brienne chastises him for not eating, for wanting to die, a part of her feels like she's obligated to do so.

Another part of her wonders if he only wants death because he fears it more than ever, with a bloody hand dangling from his neck. She wonders if he respects death anymore.

They sit, both staring into the hearth of a fire, and it feels so much more different when they first sat at that fire together from all those nights ago.

-

When they stand side by side, under the grey sky, they are finally free in the wrenching pain of a lost hand and a lost dignity.

At the mention of the queen, alive and well, Jaime tumbles to his knees, breath lost and returning. Brienne does not know whether to try to help him up or not.

-

When the Kingslayer collapses in her arms, the warmth of water surrounding them, he is no longer the Kingslayer to her. He is Jaime Lannister, naked and bare in the truth of who he was, and who he will be to her forever more.

-

Of all the nights they have spent together, this is the first night where they feel tired.

Brienne's skin rubs raw in her tight nightgown, one she does not prefer at all over the phantom weight of her trusty heavy armour. 

Jaime lays half asleep on his bed, laid on his side with his left arm under him and so his handless wrist dangles off the bed unbandaged and raw in its healing.

Brienne's eyes droop but her gaze remains fixed on Jaime's golden hair brushed over his eyes. Her throat thick and back muscles strained in her posture.

It's deep into the night, and Brienne waits under the doorframe of Jaime's temporary quarters, and she doesn't know why.

The memory of Jaime weak and frail in the baths is still fresh in her mind, having only happened a few hours ago. His face still remains half washed, tiny streaks of dirt smudging the bridge of his nose, and his heavily lidded eyes staring beyond her in the candlelight.

The attending boy at Jaime's side, clicks through bared teeth, when the knife he uses to cut the Jaime's new bandage knicks him on his knuckle. The end of the bandage flops over Jaime's handless wrist, unproperly wrapped and unfinished. 

The boy reaches to do something- but Brienne steps forward, a little afraid her steps were loud enough to disturb Jaime from his half-sleeping. "I'll finish it- leave us and go clean your wound." She mutters, pulling a chair from the end of the bed to attend to Jaime.

Brienne stares at the bandage for a moment, hesitating in her course of action to the sound of the young boy leaving the room. She lifts her hands to do something, she doesn't know what but Jaime's snort stops her mid-action.

"Do you not know how to wrap up a bandage?" He questions, but he doesn't seem to phrase it as malicious. His voice almost startles her in his silence the minutes before.

Brienne feels childish in her position. "I've never needed to," She retorts, grabbing the end of the bandage, not too hard she hopes. "Unlike you, I fight well enough to not get injured." But she bites my tongue once she finishes.

Jaime didn't fight to keep his hand. Not in a way where it was fair. 

She finishes quickly, unsure if her masterpiece of a tuck and knot would end up being effective at all through the days to come. She bites her lip and shuffles in her chair.

A part of her feels like she should leave. "I should go. Get your rest, I'll see you in the morning," She mutters, and she hopes that she will, in her uncertainty.

"And not stay with me as my watchdog? How disappointing."

Brienne doesn't move. Wonders to think of his words as an insult or not.

"I'm a weak man in need of your protection, as of now. As of now." He jests.

"Never once would I think to hear you say that."

"Never once," Jaime mocks, as if he was imitating a poet, "would I think I would lose my hand, my heart, and will to live."

"You didn't lose your will to live, you're living right now." Brienne responds, brow furrowing.

Jaime twists a little upright in his position on the bed but rolls his eyes only the slightest. "Only for you, because you wouldn't stop yelling at me to eat the night before."

Brienne's gaze snaps from travelling across the room to Jaime. She can see he realized his words too. But it was only a jest of course- living only for her? She tries not to chuckle at the thought of that being a possibility.

The candle flame flickers in the moments passing, dancing as its own little hearth.

"You do-" Jaime's voice scratches, struggling for breath. "look very different in a dress."

Brienne huffs and resists picking at the hem of her collar. "You mean unseemly and unattractive." She grunts, staring down at the slight off-blue of her nightgown.

Jaime doesn't answer, and Brienne looks up to look at his eyes.

They're both at a loss for words, but they make up the for the silence in their gazes.

"Are you not tired at al-l?" Brienne stumbles, thinking of nothing else to say. She starts to fiddle with her fingers, her nails bitten, skin dry and chaffed.

Jaime watches her fingers, every tendon in her palm stretch slowly, and breathes to answer. "I'm always tired, just not restful. Where- where did you get that?" He moves his wrist closer to her, fresh bandages wrapped around the stub, close to brushing her hand on her knee. 

Brienne watches it, trying her best to conjure up an answer without stumbling on her words. "It was a gift from a nobleman's daughter when I five, she was a wretched little brat." She answers, turning the scar on her smallest finger to the light. It mars her rather long finger with a streak of white, a pale fleshy pink around it.

"It looks like a knife to me." Jaime murmurs, eyes burning a hole through her hand. He shuffles to lay on his back instead of his side, left arm looking close to falling off the edge of the bed.

Brienne shakes her head, wrapping her scar into her palm. "No, worse, it was a hairpin mounted with a golden quail that she used to cut me. But my brother hand delivered a maimed quail to her the night after, to my satisfication."

Jaime seems to smile a little, but Brienne can't tell. "I meant that it's in the shape of a knife." 

Brienne hopes she hasn't reddened, but her cheeks burn at the thought of even thinking to tell such a foolish and childish story.

"Your brother- what's his name?" 

"He's dead."

Jaime scoffs. "You're a strange woman. But I believe this time is the first that you haven't answered a question you didn't want to answer."

Brienne thinks of every sneer and insult he directed to her before. Before now. "Braiden. He was- 7 when he died of fever."

Jaime hums. "He would've been a great warrior, it sounds."

Brienne agrees silently, not wanting her heart to ache.

"What about your twin? And younger brother." She feels almost foolish to continue the conversation, but a part of her wants to know.

"I'm surprised you even asked about Tyrion. He's- always been smart, but- Cerse-"

Jaime stops in his words, stuttering like he wasn't sure of what to say was what he wanted to say. 

"A part of me believes I love my sister for who she is. Another thinks-"

"She _is_ the queen. Devotion is all you all you're expected to have of her." Brienne guesses.

Jaime stares at Brienne, throat dry and hollow. He thinks of the words, and they make him dig a hole inside himself full of hate. 

_Misguided devotion._

"She is the queen. A good one." He mumbles through slow lips. 

Brienne wonders who Cersei is, for Jaime to love her so much. 

Another part wonders about kind of devotion he has for her. If it was the honour of family he served with, or the honour of duty.

"Tell me about your scars." She says through her teeth, finding her eyes to travel the figure under the thin bedsheet, and all the memories marked on it in hiding.

Jaime takes in her question, slowly, raises a trembling, tired hand above his head. "This one, on my shoulder," He mumbles, his sleeve slowly riding down his arm. "From my swordsmaster as a youth. Every session with him was utterly painful." He scoffs, as if it were a fond memory. 

Brienne scoffs along with him, a little warm feeling forming in the bottom of her stomach.

"There's more to come, of course." Jaime quietly gasps for a small breath, exhaustion taking over. "Once- I start training with this hand, if my fate ever comes to a time where I can do so."

Brienne smiles. "You will, and you'll have to duel me then. King's Landing still-"

"And I'll reluctantly agree to your challenge-"

"But I won't have failed Lady Catelyn and pursued you in venegeance."

Jaime laughs, and it's quiet, and broken in breath, but real.

And Brienne of course, can't hold in her smile.

"I never thanked you for telling me- all that in the baths."

Jaime barely moves his head, only his lips in a hoarse croak. "It wasn't a gift to tell you who I am."

Brienne presses her lips together and drags her gaze to the burning candle, wax dripping as slow as the words from her mouth.

"But your presence is. Thank you." He whispers. 

The way he speaks, the very gruffness but softness of every syllable chills Brienne to the bone.

Silence plays out in the moments next, the candle burning smaller and smalller.

"Why are you here?" Jaime finally whispers, minutes that feel like hours passing. "Tell me the truth."

"There is no reason other than the truth." Brienne blurts. 

"You wonder how we've come to this. Both unshackled. Free."

"You're free. I've dishonoured Lady Catelyn."

"You're still free to run away."

Brienne scoffs, but doesn't answer. There was nothing to run to.

There was only this moment, and Jaime in front of her.

And she didn't know what the future would bring her. She didn't know if he would be in it.

So Brienne whispers under her breath.

"Good night, Jaime." 

"Brienne."

Jaime's fingertips stroke hers on her knee before she draws away and stands, leaving him to himself in the dark of night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks sm for reading, i'd love it if you guys left kudos and comments!!  
> more to come soon xx


	4. the pull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the events at harrenhaal.
> 
>  
> 
> jaime and brienne finds that everything pulls themselves closer together.

When Lord Bolton's eyes linger on Brienne's fingers curling over her knife, his knife, Brienne can't help but grip it tighter. Especially when Jaime puts his hand on hers.

It's only when she remembers to release her grip, that _that_ was what Jaime was telling her to do, she does. 

She breathes a tight breath from her chest. Another rigid dress, set on her skin like thin ham.

The morning meal set before the three of them feels cold in its looks and the air in the room. Brienne can barely remember Bolton's fork reaching his mouth to finish his food from the plate already more than half eaten.

Jaime's words become loud in her ears in the conversation, close to white noise, but she catches every single curve of the vowels escaping Jaime's tongue. It's only while staring at the stringy food on her plate, that Brienne realizes, Jaime is weak more than anything else under the shadow of Lord Bolton. 

It's the gaunt eyes and tattered sleeves that remind her so. 

Lord Bolton's face is barely distinguishable in front of the white morning light. The window of buzz and rolling carts towed by hooves flows behind him and follows his graveish tone. The dark shadows of Bolton's face turn with the tilt of his head in sly hostility.

Brienne throws in a few of her own polite- hopefully not too obviously harsh- comments in reply. She forgets them, her words, in an instance, and her glare lingers on Bolton still when Jaime speaks to align his own interests.

"I will allow you to go to King's Landing- for restitution for the mistakes my soldiers made," Bolton adjures, eyes unmistakingly unmoving from Jaime's. "And you will swear to tell your father the truth. That I had nothing to do with your maiming." 

Brienne wants to watch Bolton's lips run with the lightness of his voice but her eyes glue themselves to Jaime. Bolton speaks of Jaime's  _'maiming',_ plain as he can, as if it didn't cost Brienne nights of pondering the thought of giving in to guilt, to the sound of Jaime's muffled cries blanketing her sleep. 

Brienne bites the inside of her cheek at the thought in condemnation. Jaime's pain didn't cost her anything.

The toll only weighed heavy on his own shoulders.

It's only when Bolton finishes, blunt and masked in his surge of power over Jaime, that Brienne's eyes trace listlessly from him to his hand reaching for the pitcher of wine.

Bolton's refusal draws Jaime's grasp to her own cup. The long trickle of liquid pouring tries to pull a _'Thank you'_ from her mouth, but she knows better than to say it now.

"Very well-" Jaime pours his cup casually. "My lady, may our journey continue without further incident." 

Brienne's eyes draw back and forth from Jaime to her own cup at the sound of her title in his mouth. It feels foreign to be called ' _his'_ , and a ' _lady'_ , two things she never thought would come to be spoken.

She brushes it away. She throws the best excuse she can at Bolton's noncompliance. She finds herself knowing- without previous discussion that Jaime wanted the same as her. 

To be together.

The electricity between them prickles in the air.

That or the hateful static edging in their conversation with Bolton.

At Jaime's insistence, Brienne already knows it's a lost cause to want, to ask for any more.

"I would've hoped you learned your lesson about- overplaying your position." Bolton churns his head, each word sharp in attack.

Brienne only hears the swallow that Jaime pushes at the bottom of his throat between them.

And she- she is silent in the broken space between them.

-

Jaime's strides quick on his heels, but he doesn't notice that.

The curls of the Bolton boy in front of him bounce in quick haste and his heels the same, in his regard for Jaime's rush.

It's only when the boy pushes open Brienne's door that Jaime feels his feet slowing and mildly aching in the trek from his guest quarters across the castle to hers.

It's sad. Empty really. The whole room, holes in the wall exposing wood frame and the dusk light streaming in.

Fire and torches litter some corners of the room. The biggest one a tiny hearth obviously started by Brienne, in its wavering glow and abundant warmth.

The shine burns into Jaime's eyes, as far as it is from him. It reminds him so much of the night out of all nights they had to spend together, lit amongst all else in certain remembrance.

He drags his gaze to Brienne beside it. Rising stunned from her seat on her crickety bed at his presence.

"Have they told you what they plan to do with me?" Brienne asks of him, and Jaime can't help but stare at the dip of her lifted chin. Her wavering is apparent. But her anger- her anger carries itself to him in the space between them.

Jaime knows his answer, the plan for Brienne to stay and he answers her question so. It's a biting thought of the facts that come with her confinement.

Yet Brienne says the name as he would've expected.  _Locke_ , she spits, no fear in what power he once- and maybe still had over her. 

But he knows, Jaime knows what he owes her and he says it so. The whole idea of her staying by his side until King's Landing boils at the back of his mind. He couldn't imagine leaving any other way. 

He could save her again, as much as she didn't and did need saving. It was in his nature now, as much as he was hesitant to admit, to give her what he could.

But in Brienne, Jaime could expect her her already to say no.

She mentions Catelyn Stark again, much to his disappointment.  _Would that yes, that nod ever come?_

But the regality, the lady that Brienne had always been anticipated to be by her father, glowed in the fire light and tilt of her chin and posture. She was a lady now. She had always been, and it only showed when she wanted to.

It's this, that draws his eyes to Brienne's balled fists and steady gaze, that reminds Jaime of the differences that amounted to the atmosphere they had now, through their whole journey together. 

He thinks of the sunlight spotting through trees onto Brienne's cheeks in their forest treks. Her face splashed with little sweat and water, and again with sparks and heat through night fires.

Her handsomeness, he realizes now, was nothing like a man's or any other woman. Her eyes, her face was captivating the way a woman was beautiful.

She was still captivating in front of the core of the fire, small as it was. 

And he knows. He knows he has to agree, to swear his promise to her Ladyship. He was after all, a knight. 

"I swear it." He utters, thinking of the Stark girls, of Brienne's devotion. 

So Brienne bids him farewell. His name on her mouth. Not Kingslayer, not the bitter curl that everyone slipped everyone's tongue when addressing his family name, but Ser Jaime.

It's worst of all that a small smile accompanies it. 

Jaime's throat goes dry because of it. 

The dusk creeps near in the moment between the knight and his lady.

Jaime turns to leave.

He has nothing else to say, because he does not want to say goodbye.

-

Jaime no longers strides across the grounds of Harrenhaal. 

He runs, he knows what's to happen. He knows what is happening now. 

It's the jeers in the distance that carry him closer, and faster. It brings along a fear to consume his chest. 

He knows what's happening. To Brienne.

The numb sting from the stub on his wrist burns a pain through his right side. He only regrets that it slows him down from getting to Brienne.

-

Brienne remembers a time when she always had wanted to see a bear. 

There wasn't much forests in the land of Tarth. Only in the outskirts her father never allowed her to visit, but they were still not big enough for a bear to live there.

The only caves, too, were in the crags and shaved boulders that stood still for the waves to crash and pull against them.

Brienne had spent a lot of time in those caves, when she could. She wishes now that she never left them.

It takes her all of her breath to not moan in the ache of flesh tearing at her shoulder. 

She has nothing to do but throw her sword against the scruff of the bear. She feels nothing but as anticipated when it claws her faulty weapon from her.

She tries to not want to close her eyes when she stumbles back on her heels. Every swipe hitting hard and causing pain to ricochet right into her brain. 

Brienne doesn't even feel the ground hit her when the bear pushes her back with another violent swipe. Her eyes tremble but stay on the bear approaching.

The ground of gravel shuffles behind Brienne with a thud, and Jaime enters staggering on his footing, maybe because of his landing, maybe because of the fear vibrating between the both of them.

How foolish, Brienne thinks. How stupid of Jaime to come and try to save her again.

She knows she needs it more than ever.

It's the split second that lingers behind the warm huffs of the bear felt from steps away, that pulls Jaime to say: "Get behind me," in the most unwavering tone Brienne had heard out of him.

Brienne fights back with her words, but not in the way she gives in to the pull of Jaime's grasp. 

The arrow startles her as much as it does to Jaime. 

He pulls her again to the wall.

The men above drag her up, Brienne pushing her feet up against the wall. She kicks at the hem of her gown, muddied with dirt and gravel or her own black blood.

She stumbles her way to her feet at the height of the crowd, only to instinctively turn around and get to her knees. The command escapes her lips before she knows it, to make the men behind her hold her feet. 

Jaime lingers at the spot where he pushed her up, now facing the bear as if he were staring death straight in the eyes. Brienne slips down her arms, hands open and only waiting for Jaime to take them.

The bear follows the way Jaime mounts the wall with an unsteady hand and feet. His legs push at the frames of the wall but Brienne hisses in her effort to reach any closer to him.

But Jaime doesn't reach for her. He stares at the bear and Brienne feels the dread course through the veins of her hands. They stretch further, and Jaime's name closes to her lips as a shout.

Then Jaime takes her hand, relief flushes through her.

It's like every other time he has.

 

-

King's Landing is only a few days far from Harrenhaal on horse.

Jaime has Brienne take up a white horse beside him for the day's journey.

He bandages her wounds on her shoulder and arms and neck, himself, with the help of Brienne's uninjured side later that night to make two hands at work.

He can finally teach her how to properly wrap a bandage, more than the simple loose tuck and knot he condemned her for.

Brienne smiled at least once, Jaime remembers the next morning before they set off on the horses.

She smiled once through the firelight of the camp they had. By the sounds of snoring and whispered murmurs of the Bolton's men that accompanied them.

But it felt as if it was only them in the crop of trees an afternoon's away from the morning they had.

Skin chafes under the tight bandages Jaime had been taught to tie, but Brienne whispers a small thanks to the stars, and most of all Jaime.

Jaime doesn't respond. 

The night burns on, the fire undying.

The sense of trust trickles in the distance separating them. It pulls them closer through the night.

The fire burns on.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for updating so slowly, but thanks for reading, i'd love it if you left kudos and comments on what you think of this chapter! <3
> 
> more to come soon :)))


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